1 Transcript of a Recording of Jeremy Light, Interviewed at Peterhouse

Transcript of a recording of Jeremy Light, interviewed at Peterhouse College on 15 September 2007 by Chris Eldon Lee. Jeremy Light, BAS Archive AD6/24/1/29, transcribed by Barry Heywood, 8 November 2015. Light: Jeremy Light. I was born 30th January 1943 in Salcombe, South Devon. [00:00:22] Lee: What were you doing before you came to BAS or Fids? Light: I was a student at Aberdeen University, studying Zoology at first, then Honours in Botany. [00:00:38] Lee: What drew you into going to the Antarctic? Light: Two things. There was an old Fid called Ian McLeod [G.K.McLeod - Transcriber?] who went down to the Antarctic many times. I remember him saying that it was the only way he could escape from women. And then I was very lucky to be able to go to an evening slide show given by Dr Macklin who was on Shackleton’s last voyage. No! not the last voyage – the famous boat voyage one. And that was really inspiring to me. [00:01:19] Lee: You didn’t want to get away from women particularly? Light: No! No I didn’t want to get away from my woman. [Lee laughs] We have known each other from practically birth. [00:01:34] Lee: So how did you go about fulfilling your wish, your dream? Light: Well, when I had finished my honours, I applied to BAS, but in fact, I had started on an honours project…I did some work on the high corrie lochans in the Cairngorms and found aquatic mosses there…quite a find…and so it seemed tailor-made for me when there was a job to study lakes on Signy Island. And I had to apply in the normal way. [00:02:15] Lee: So someone had specified the project before… Light: Yes BAS had lined up the work following Barry Heywood’s work on the zoology. 1 [00:02:29] Lee: And how had you hear about the vacancy? Light: Well, possibly McLeod said apply to BAS but I think it was BAS was doing the routine tour of the universities, and I went along to a talk by BAS. [00:02:44] Lee: So you applied for the job. Was it a tough interview? Light: Not very, no, because I had it from Barry Heywood, and I was never interviewed by Bill Sloman, who was the main personnel officer, and had a very shrewd way of judging people…and I was never on very good terms with him. I wondered if it was because he had never vetted me at the beginning. [00:03:17] Lee: You slipped through the net! Light: Yes! [00:03:19] Lee: And they offered you a post. Light: Yes. [00:03:22] Lee: What were the terms? You were going for a couple of years? Light: Yes. It was a standard couple of years contract. But to do the work on phytoplankton in the lakes, I had to develop a certain amount of special equipment, and as I was a mountaineer and happy in that sort of environment, I spent my first winter with BAS in the Cairngorms, developing equipment on the ice-covered lochans there. And so I went down, at the end of my first year with BAS…went South. So that meant at the end of my two and a half year contract… it meant that when I went down South I had only 18 months of my contract to run and at the end of that time then there was the question of renewing it. Should I stay on for another year? And I said yes. I would love to. [00:04:23] Lee: What was the equipment you were developing then? Tell me about that. Is it new…brand new technology? Light: Yes. Essentially, when you analyse…study the water in an ice- covered lake you have got to make a hole. And when you make a hole through the ice cover and snow on top, you disturb the surface a lot and that is certain to affect particularly the light passing through the ice. I had 2 to do my sampling and measurements some way away from the hole I had made through the ice. So I had to make stuff that would go through the hole and then angle out underneath when it was under the ice, then swing it round so that I could get repeat samples. So there was that, and there was a question of how to make a hole and keep a hole…the same hole open, so I had tubes of various sorts. I remember having cast iron metal tubes that I poured hot water inside to melt them when I came to sample; trying out greased tubes…greased plastic tubes… [00:05:34] Lee: It is though as if the samples, the repeat samples were taken from exactly the same spot. Light: Yes. I needed a regular sample point because I was doing this every week throughout the year. [00:05:45] Lee: You took that technology with you when you went? Light: Yes. It was ideal. I was able to try out several things; found out what worked. Make it up and take it south with me. [00:05:57] Lee: Sounds like you were prepared above the average for your expedition. Most of the chaps I talk to heard about it and were there within 6 weeks or so, having scrambled round to get what they wanted. You seemed to have had a fair amount of preparation time. Light: Yes, I think I was lucky in that respect. But I wasn’t the first to study the lakes. Barry Heywood had a fair idea from his work what the next stage was. [00:06:25] Lee: So…what was your scientific ambition upon departure for the Antarctic? Light: To follow the seasonal rhythm of phytoplankton growth and associated environmental factors: the light, the nutrient depletion particularly. Particularly under the ice because the Americans and others had done the lakes in the summer when they were open…open water…in other parts of Antarctica. Nobody had done a study throughout the winter and studied what happened under the ice in spring when there is quite a lot of light but of course the ice stops the water circulating. I found fascinating things happening. The phytoplankton…the microscopical cells can’t control their position at all when the lakes open but under the ice they were able to move up and down. Move up into the light when 3 they were photosynthesising and once they had depleted the upper layers of nutrients they went down and took the nutrients from lower down. [00:07:45] Lee: These were new discoveries! Very much new work! When you got to Signy what was the lab like? How sophisticated was it? Light: Well I suppose that was only in comparison with what I had been used to as a student, so they seemed well equipped for me. I don’t remember having any restrictions, of thinking I wish I had this facility or that. It wasn’t limited by the facilities at all. [00:08:18] Lee: You had plenty of time. Light: Yes, I had a little field hut by the lake where I would spend the night. I always went there alone. There was never any question then of not being able to go alone. Personally I think the journey there – a mile or so – day or night, summer or winter – was no more dangerous than going down to the shops at home…no cars to run me down! This field hut was an important facility I needed. In fact, the first one, that had been flown in the year before, hadn’t been properly secured and had just blown away. I remember it being called a ‘rollalong’ and the first one certainly rolled along several hundred yards. And so they hurriedly flew in another one when I was there. I was able to secure it against all gales. [00:09:21] Lee: This is down to rocks. Inside was it luxurious? Light: It was double-skinned. I’m not sure if there was insulation within the two walls. It had a lining. It had a metal outside. I found it cosy enough. One was used to that sort of thing. I suppose I was lucky in that I done a lot of winter mountaineering in Scotland beforehand. The conditions weren’t too bad. One arrived in summer and as the autumn progressed…winter progressed…you adapted, as it got colder. I had a little primus, and I had benches and basic lab equipment. [00:10:08] Lee: Tell me about it. Light: I particularly need to do carbon 14 uptake experiments to measure photosynthesis, which needed equipment on the spot. [00:10:21] Lee: Would you spend several days at a time there? Light: A routine trip would be 2 days but then I had special experiments like ‘could the full moon in winter, the full moon, affect the 4 phytoplankton?’ So then I did experiments throughout the 24 hours. So obviously I had to be there throughout the whole time. At other times I did an experiment clearing a window through the ice…removing the snow…to see what would happen if the light was very much more. Special experiments, and I would stay longer. [00:10:59] Lee: What was the answer to your question about the full moon? Light: Yes, I did get results that showed that the phytoplankton was affected by it.

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